Soon, you

Brussels has a plan to boost turnout at the 2009 European election. It intends to share out Â€10.6 million among the European parties (the EPP, the Party of European Socialists and so on). With all that moolah sloshing around, runs the argument, people are just bound to vote.

Spending more is unlikely to excite the ordinary European voter

It won't work, of course. We know this, because it has already been tried. Since the first direct elections in 1979, MEPs have consistently snatched at more money for themselves and their institution. You can judge how successful they have been from the unbroken slide in turnout across the EU as a whole:

1979Â 63 per cent1984Â 61 per cent1989Â 58.5 per cent1994Â 56.8 per cent1999Â 49.8 per cent2004Â 45.6 per cent

The Euro-federalist assertion that turnout would rise once people had a clearer idea of what MEPs do is, as you can see, demonstrably false.Â Empirical evidence suggests that, on the contrary, the more people know about the European Parliament, the less they want to do with it.

In fact, of course, the money isn't really about increasing turnout rates. It's about extending the patronage powers of MEPs. A whole series of jobs will be brought into being, all paid for by the taxpayer, allowing Brussels apparatchiks to reward their friends and extend their influence. Once again, we see the EU for what it really is: a mechanism for redistributing wealth from the people who don't work for it to the people who do.

"Who, whom?" asked Lenin, in perhaps the pithiest statement of political philosophy ever uttered. Who holds the power, and over whom does he exercise it? These days, the answer is obvious: we do, we Eurocrats.